Saturday, October 29, 2011

Back when I fought against the free 2 play (F2P) movement for PC gaming it was because I was worried about quantity outpacing quality. The PC F2P scene fortunately turned the corner towards quality, but another market, mobile gaming, has turned into a classic quantity over quality scenario. The majority of F2P games for my Android phone are nigh impossible to play due to spam advertising and required micro-transactions. Most free apps couldn't even be considered legitimate previews of the game and feel more like a mugger trying to get at my wallet. Mobile gaming makes even the worst offenders in the PC F2P movement look like saints. If people were up in arms about something like Allods Online, then they'd be stroking out over the state of F2P mobile gaming.

The unfortunate reality is that F2P games on mobile are far more successful through spam advertising and micro-transactions. The developer ends up making more with these methods than with one-time purchases. This is mostly because the pricing model for mobile apps is in the basement and if an app is greater than a couple dollars, it is doomed.

I understand developers need to make money and for the mobile space it's easier to follow the trend instead of making a statement with a paid-for only app. The problem is that both advertising and micro-transactions directly conflict with gaming on a mobile device. Think of the size of mobile screens and almost always having to reserve space for an advertisement banner. It is flat out ridiculous in most cases and when that accidental click of an advertisement occurs the player is usually dropped from the game completely. To note, some games are able to do advertising in a responsible way (like in between turns in Wordfeud FREE).

Secondly, mobile gaming is about quick access and simpler mechanics (which doesn't mean worse games). The in-app micro-transactions conflict with both of these. Nothing kills a game worse than spending the first five minutes finding out you really need to spend 99 cents to unlock something to make the game actually playable. Then another five minutes is spent figuring out which payment service the game is using and by the time it rolls around to game time the player is ready to move on to something else. Contributing to this further is again the screen size on mobile devices. Pages for the in-app payments have to almost always be seperate screens, further pulling players away from the game.

These are all reasons as to why I was very happy to read this article and see Rockstar talk about how they are going into mobile to deliver quality games and not just to make money:

Besides, individual markets and platforms aren't something that seems to greatly interest Houser in the first place. "This is my personal opinion, but I think a lot of people in the general mobile industry are more focused on making money than making good products," he commented. "We're a business, too --we have to think about how to build revenue and we value the knowledge you need for that, but we want to conduct business with superior products. Focusing on nothing but business is depressing to me; it's boring. I want people to understand that we make games for more than just to make money."

I believe mobile gaming is going through growing pains and as we see more big developers like Rockstar step in with true, quality games aimed at core gamers we'll see a reduction in the downward spiral of game pricing and F2P mechancis. The current situation is not sustainable. Only so much shovelware can exist before the market crashes. History has taught us this.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Fortunes of War is an asynchronous card game similar to the best-selling Dominion card game. It pits two (or more) players against each other in a game where cards are purchased from a “card market” and then played in turns. Along with a starting deck, cards purchased from the market and wounds received from in-game actions make up a players deck. A game is over when three separate cards become sold out in the market. There is no building of decks before hand and as far as I can tell, the cards available in the market each game are random (except single-player campaign missions which feature the same card set).

The game is a solid time waster and deep enough to provide committed players a long term experience. The fact there is no deck building reduces the barrier to entry for new players, but by no means does it mean the game is easy to pick up. At first look, Fortunes of War is confusing. It will take a new player some time, and really reading up on the tutorial, to get a feel for the game. From there it takes several games to understand how to be competitive.

The game features single-player and multiplayer. I found the single-player fairly difficult, at least in the free version. I eventually beat most of the available campaign missions, but it took dozens of tries. The biggest problem is that the player faces off against multiple computer opponents in most of the missions and those computer opponents are all on one team. This means attacks against the player do not also affect the enemy’s companions (unless the card specifically states it affects all players). The player is often in 3 vs 1 or 2 vs 1 situations which becomes a significant challenge, but I still found myself working to beat the campaign missions over and over. There is a certain addictive, puzzle-solving quality it.

In multiplayer the issue is removed as there are no teams. Every player is out for themselves. I played the free version only, so my multiplayer options were limited and I often failed to find any opponents online via the random start feature. Fortunately there is an option to fill in empty spots with computer opponents.

Overall I was impressed with the game. For the single player experience I would highly recommend the free app to any experienced board or card gamer. It offers a fantastic challenge and if the player likes, there is more single player content in the paid version. The lack of players in multiplayer for the free version made me question whether the paid version would be worth it. If more players or better options to connect players ever become available in the free version, I may look back into playing this game and maybe getting the paid version. There just wasn’t enough multiplayer experience in the free version to hook me.

The free version is available here. The paid version is $2.99 and available here.

My original plan for this post was to take the official press impressions of the beta and review them. The whole "review the reviewers" and "read between the lines" type of criticism I like to get into. Unfortunately the hawks at Bioware were on my tweet to Keen in a heartbeat and to my astonishment, before looking into what I was actually going to post about, they informed me I wasn't allowed to talk. Of course I tweeted furiously that they have no say in whether I cover the press previews in a blog post.

In turn I was basically called a filthy NDA-breaking blogger who "didn't care". Sadly, I do care or well I did care. Instead of getting into some petty "you're talking about the previews, but we know you're really talking about your beta testing" argument, I'm just not going to talk about the game. In fact, this is last post that will ever mention the title on this blog. It will be the Brett Favre of /r/nfl and henceforth be known as "the game that shall not be named".

As for my original, long-winded post about the game? All you need to know is that the game is under tight NDA wraps with less than two months until launch.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

I have drawn a line in the sand. I am a Steam user and I want my fucking games on Steam. Publishers should come to me, the consumer. I, the consumer, should not have to go to them. I have serious problems with Origin (and Battle.net and Steam for that matter). I DO NOT want exclusive digital distribution platforms. However, I am an avid PC gamer; a very hypocritical and easily fooled by “oh shiny” gamer at that.
This brings me to my current dilemma. I’ve all but said that I refuse to accept Origin and EA locking their flagship games into the platform. Especially because I own a half dozen of their other games on Steam and I really like Steam as my digital distribution platform. I’m disappointed that Valve and EA can’t work out their differences.

The EA vs Valve spat was not terribly unexpected. This has been playing out in the movie/TV streaming market for years already. The content providers are unwilling to sell the rights to their prime content to players such as Netflix or Amazon. Netflix and Amazon then get stuck with the re-runs and B rate stuff. The content providers meanwhile are wising up to the fact they can just as easily distribute their own digital content and just like hardcore game fans, the content fans will come to them.

The content I’m interested in is Battlefield 3. I’ve played and paid for all but two PC Battlefield titles to date. I loved the last two iterations: Heroes and Bad Company 2. I’ve always picked the Battlefield series over the likes of Call of Duty or Counterstrike. Battlefield games have always given me, the very unskilled twitch player, an excellent chance to thrive in the not-focused-just-on-shooting aspects. I played one hell of a medic in Battlefield 2.

I’ve been sitting around today watching videos such as the one at the end of this post and I’m absolutely drooling at the footage. Battlefield 3 is exactly the type of game I want. It’s an upgrade of Bad Company 2 and flat-out impressive. And I’m missing out on it because of some silly line I drew in the sand.

The problem is: can I really by the hypocrite? Again? My mind says no, but my heart (ha!) says “who gives a fuck?”. So this is me signing off, unsure what I’m going to do. In the mean time, I need to stop watching videos.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

It is an undeniable fact that it takes money to maintain online games for players. The revenue from initial sales cannot justify a game’s online existence past a set amount of time. Subscriptions or DLC or micro-transactions are a reality (Guild Wars not withstanding). Currently the Free 2 Play with micro transactions model is winning out. Players get hooked on the freebie and then come back paying for more. Some people view this as bad, but personally I view it as good and in my world it’s a way for me to reward the developer for giving me the game to try first before I invest.

This upkeep is one of the reasons I believe we have not seen many popular board or card games come to the multi-player online space, even when they are directly tied to an online game. It baffles me that the World of Warcraft card game, is in fact, a physical card game. Where is the UI mod that lets me play WoW the card game while playing WoW the MMOG on my PC?

I can live without fluff card games such as the WoW CCG on the PC, but I have a significant itch for some good online multi-player board gaming on (and I’m not just talking cheap flash rip offs). Fortunately, in stepped Days of Wonder (DoW) with Memoir 44 Online.

Not only did they pick the right game to try out to scratch my itch, but they chose the right platform (Steam) and a solid business model (pseudo-subscription).

In order to play games online, players must spend Gold Ingots (GI). For starters a player is given 50 GI, which results in them being able to play about 16 games completely free of charge. From there they can purchase buckets of GI to play more games. The amounts are various generous and I can forsee months worth of play for very little investment.

My only concern with the model is that it probably won’t work for games with smaller followings as after the initial freebie rush, the players start getting gated out. I’d prefer to see a monthly recurring infusion of free GI to players so the free ride lasts. If the game is good enough it will convert those free riders into paying players. Free GI would actually be a great way to market the game. Other systems such as refer-a-friend would work as well to reward players for joining up.

Memoir 44 Online is doing its best to show the potential of this system. It’s a great, time-tested board game to begin with, so it was a question of implementation and DoW nailed it. Anyone having played the board game can immediately sit down and be ready to go with the PC version. For new players there is a well made tutorial and the game itself lends to ease of learning via right clicking to see the rule cards governing each piece of the game.

Online match making is a little hard to understand as the same screen used for launching solo play is used to initiate multi-player games. After a quick chat in the main chat room, I was able to figure out how to start a match (but ended up being invited into a game by another player). I didn’t fair well on my first couple of matches just due to the fact I hadn’t played Memoir 44 in ages and have far more experience with its fantasy-based sibling Battle Lore.

The game runs absolutely great on my laptop (Alienware MX11 R2) and hooked up to the big screen it’s a glorious site to behold. The added flair to actions and combat is a nice touch. And the biggest benefit to playing this game digitally is the zero set up and zero clean up of all the tiny plastic pieces!

Monday, October 24, 2011

I’ve tried my hand at thinking up a Free 2 Play (F2P) model for Warhammer Online (WAR) before, but I fell into the trap of making a model that was too confusing. WAR COINS was a bad idea. Bioware Mythic also has an idea for F2P WAR in the case of Wrath of Heroes (WoH). Unfortunately, WoH heads in the wrong direction by making an entirely seperate game, so I'd like to take a few minutes to propose a new F2P model for WAR that would still be the same game we all wanted to love so dearly before having our dreams crushed.

One of my biggest problems with WAR has been the lack of content and action within the tier four RvR lakes (aka zones). The lakes are more like deserts, devoid of content and people except for the oasis of an undefended keep. The lack of content can't be fixed over night, but the lack of people certainly can.

Instead of building WoH, Bioware Mythic needs to be bringing the tier four Realm vs Realm (RvR) action to F2P. Over night, populations in the RvR zones and scenarios would double (if not triple). Undefended keeps would turn into knock out, drag out fights. People would be interested and focused on RvR again.

And why would they be so locked onto RvR? Because the F2P model would gate them from the PvE content. RvR zones and scenarios would be 100% F2P. Players would start off with a rank 31 character that was restricted to travel only within the tier four RvR zones. Through RvR they could level up to 40 and gain up to Realm Rank (RR) 20 (adjustable through testing).

That would not be the only change. As it is, WAR's best gear lies within RvR gameplay. In my model, the best gear would be pushed towards the PvE aspects of WAR. Tier four Public Quests and the Land of the Dead would be where the good loot was to be had. Access to the PvE zones would be available to subscribers willing to pay a monthly fee. The gear would only be useable by those that are active subscribers or active within the last month (aka players get a one month grace period to use their gear after going strict F2P).

Other benefits of subscribing, which I am calling "becoming a Citizen of the Realm" include the ability to exceed realm rank 20, capital city access, increased experience and RP rates, and prestigous battlefield titles (basically, the F2P zergs will recognize who is a paying player when on the RvR battlefield). All except the titles would be retainable when switching back to F2P (yes, thats basically a month subscription price to access the capital cities, including sieges).

Which seguays into the downsides of being a "member of the Free Companies", one of which is being able to help push zones towards a capital city siege, but not being able to participate in it. Those within the Free Companies would also be restricted to to only one character slot, prevented from using PvE gear, recieve lower priority for scenario queuing, and gain experience and RP at the standard rate.

This approach achieves almost exactly what Wrath of Heroes is attempting, but with the benefit of still supporting the main WAR and providing a little flavor differentiation. Also there is strong evidence that this is exactly what freeloaders would want out of a F2P WAR. We only have to look at the current limitless trial for WAR where anyone can play up to the top of Empire's tier one for free for as long as they want. WAR's Empire tier 1 is always bustling and the RvR zones and scenarios filled. Why Mythic then abandons any of those poor souls who decide to subscribe to the barren wasteland that is tier two and three is anyone's guess, but after playing Wrath of Heroes a few hours, I'm not at all surprised.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Last hitting in DOTA-like MOBA games is completely against the idea of a competitive player vs player experience. It restricts players by making them spend more time looking at minion health bars than competing against the enemy players. Not to mention the idea of denying, whereby players attack and kill their own minions to deny the enemy from doing it. Both are unintuitive left-overs from the Warcraft III engine and its disappointing to see games such as League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, and DOTA 2 sticking with them.There are better solutions that would allow players to focus on each other instead of minion health bars. For example, there should be a radius around the minions in which gold is gained when the minion dies. This way the focus for the player is to zone (aka push) their opponent out of the minions gold radius without having to then immediately stop focusing on the other player and return to health bar duty. If players are unable to push each other out of the “gold radius” then they stay on par with each other.Not only is this solution good for encouraging player vs player interaction, it also helps balance champions/heroes. No longer does the speed of attack animations have to come into account for the sake of last hitting. Also players can try new characters out without first having to spend practice games mastering attack animations;which means the average player can more competently play more characters.Removing last hitting also helps to speed up the rate at which gold is “farmed” which in turn cuts down the rather boring farming phase of most DOTA games. This would then help cut down the length of the average match as players more quickly achieve their goals.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

I'll make no bones about it: I didn't like Steve Jobs. There has been and are far more influential people in the tech industry that will never receive the amount of attention that Steve Jobs has garnered. However, most of all I dislike Steve Jobs because he's a lot like me (give our take a billion or so dollars) and I know I'd dislike me if I wasn't me.

Steve Jobs' greatest achievement was giving people what they needed instead of what they wanted. He literally had no technical breakthroughs with any of the things he was involved with. He simply ignored everything customers and critics ever leveled against him and forged ahead with his vision. For him it worked because he controlled the vision; viciously.

The Steve Jobs approach. The giving communities of people what they need instead of what they want. This. This is still a very valid and increasingly needed approach to all products. Actually, its an excellent barometer to use when comparing forces in other markets.

The more I become involved in the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) community, through playing League of Legends, the more I like to look at what has happened in the (MOBA) market and what is coming up. What I see reminds me a lot of the Steve Jobs Apple.

The three big players in the MOBA mareket are: DOTA (the original Warcraft III mod), League of Legends (from Riot games), and Heroes of Newerth (from S2). The 500 lb gorilla in the room, currently in beta testing, is DOTA 2 (from Valve).

The current king, by all measurements, is League of Legends (LoL) which boasts 15+ million accounts on its Free 2 Play model. Heroes of Newerth (HoN) in comparison had approximately 400,000 accounts when it was a standalone boxed game, but it recently moved to Free 2 Play model and new player numbers are not available yet (regardless, its still well below LoL's numbers). There is no reliable way to count the number of DOTA players due to the fact it is still a mod, but estimates are over a million players for the original DOTA (again well shy of LoL). Valve's DOTA2 did attract over 500,000 beta requests and goes into full scale testing soon.

LoL is considered a simpler version of DOTA and it's developers, Riot Games, actively support this notion as they designed the game to be easier to learn and have produced a non-DOTA game mode. HoN is a near clone of the original DOTA. DOTA2 is the literal clone of DOTA and is exactly the same game, but with Valve's Source Engine and a focus on more community features.

Even with DOTA2 spinning up and Blizzard threatening with their own official DOTA flavor on the Starcraft 2 engine, LoL is dominating the market. And to me LoL is the Steve Jobs of the MOBA genre. LoL by no means does what it's players want. It does what the players need, whether they know it yet or not.

If you ask LoL players what they want you will inevitably come to the conclusion that LoL players want:

1. Replays
2. Spectator Mode
3. A better game client/launcher

Riot Games has been slow to develop any of these. Not to say they haven't worked on any of these areas, but if you spoke to the LoL faithful you would quickly think that Riot hates their core community. It's practically a crime at this point that LoL doesn't have replays, or spectator mode and that players are still forced in to the Adobe Air game client (FROM HELL!).

Funny thing is, all of these items are things players WANT (seriously, they won't shut up about them), but in no way is it what a MOBA game NEEDS. MOBA games, especially those inspired by DOTA, have a reputation problem. The original DOTA community sucks. It's intolerant of new or bad players. While DOTA offers an incredibly deep and competitive experience, the community continually keeps the vast majority of new players away. Replays, spectator modes, and game clients can not fox that problem. A MOBA game can not be successful on the DOTA model without dealing with the community.

As LoL players screamed for the listed items above, Riot Games focused on other endeavors, one of which is an absolute key to their success: The Tribunal. The Tribunal is a community polcing tool. If a player acts the fool in a game of LoL, players can easily report them for various infractions (most often, verbal abuse). These reports are then later reviewed by players who get to say yay or nay to whether the conduct reported was detrimental to the community. The recommendation of the players is then forwarded to Riot Games who makes a final call on the punishment. More times than not if a random selection of players votes that someone was being a jerk, Riot agrees and warns (or bans) the account.

LoL and Riot Games have taken this to the bank, millions of times over while their competitors (mainly HoN) tried to simply redeliver the DOTA game. To no one's surprise, the bad community vibe followed right along to HoN. Now that HoN is Free 2 Play, its easy to compare the two communities. HoN is terrible. LoL is no picnic all of the time either, but there is satisfaction to be had knowing that fellow players will be judging the retards who can't keep their fingers off the /all chat key. Overall, LoL has far fewer problems because of the Tribunal.

Problem is, LoL players feel cheated because development efforts went into the Tribunal, which most players felt was just a waste of time (after all, we should all just accept terrible communities because there are mute buttons AMIRITE!?!). Players WANTED replays. They wanted LoL, the then second generation of DOTA, to fill in features that DOTA had, but could not capitalize on due to being tied to the Warcraft III engine. Riot put their head in the sand and said NO. They pushed on what they knew was going to make their game a success. They made LoL accessible and policed the 12 year olds (in 30 something old bodies).

This is not a blanket "Riot did everything right statement." Riot has made it's share of mistakes. Riot was right though and delivered to the needs of their players. Players were the DOTA-like game's worst enemy and they essentially fixed it while making LoL accessible. Had they made the game accessible and not fixed the community, the game wouldn't have survived.

Moving forward, DOTA2 is coming down the pipe line. We don't know if it will be Free 2 Play. We don't know what Valve is doing to tackle the community problem. However, we know DOTA2 will have replays. DOTA2 will have spectating. DOTA2 will have a lot of what the players WANT. My concern is that DOTA2 and Valve may not be focusing on what players need. However, Valve has a stubborn history themselves. All one needs to do is look at the history of Steam itself to know Valve knows what players need well before we even know we need it. Let's hope Valve is ahead of the curve with DOTA2.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The day has come. Pack your children into a suitcase, sell the dog, flee to the countryside and put all your energy into growing giant marrows. The end times are coming. The Great Doom has begun. The last bastion has fallen.

World of Warcraft now allows you, in a roundabout sort of way, to officially swap real money for in-game gold. RUN FOR THE HILLS.

The basics are this:

Blizzard sells pet for $10
Pet is NOT Bind on Aquire
Players sell Pet in Auction House for X gold
Players are now able to basically buy gold for cash via $10 pet

Why Blizzard just doesn't cut the shennanigans out is beyond me. They need to just shut up and start selling gold and other mictro-transactions and move World of Warcraft to a Free 2 Play model.